ordinary to observe how very differently two credible and disinterested witnesses are impressed with an event transacted before their eyes. Without the least intention to deceive, the one may omit circumstances mentioned by the other; so that a casuist or objector may with ease establish an inconsistency in their statements, and deduce therefrom reasons for refusing an assent to their respective narrations. This same anomaly is still more apparent in the records of history. An impartial student will have the greatest difficulty in arriving at the truth. Events are so distorted by party zeal, or by religious animosities; individual characters are so blackened by one set of annalists, and so lauded by another,—that it amounts almost to an impossibility to hold the balance between them. By the same infirmity of human nature, a judge is prohibited from giving judgment in his own cause; and a man is suspected when a witness in his own case.

This fable sets forth the natural partiality shown by every man for his own side of any question, and cautions us to weigh well the evidence to be alleged for or against a matter before we arrive at a final and irrevocable decision. The tendency to exaggeration exhibited by the Forester too often terminates in the ridicule and discomfiture of the boaster.

All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

THE Lion, when he finished his dispute with the Forester, saw his fair daughter, and immediately fell in love with her, and at once demanded her hand of the Forester, that he might make her his queen. The Forester was much perplexed at the proposal. He was alike unwilling to part with his daughter or to offend the Lion. He hit upon this expedient: he told the Lion that he would consent upon these conditions, that he must agree to have his teeth drawn

out and his claws cut off, lest he should hurt her, or lest she should be frightened of him. The Lion assented; but was no sooner deprived of his teeth and claws, than the Forester attacked him with a huge club, and killed him.

MORAL. Untimely love produces misery.

APPLICATION. Love is the most universal of all sentiments. It visits alike the old and the young, the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor, the wise and the simple. When resulting in marriage, it is the herald of increased happiness or the precursor of untold misery.

Marriage is with us

The holiest ordinance of God: whereon
The bliss or bane of human life depends.

Love must be won by love, and heart by heart

Linked in mysterious sympathy, before

We pledge the married vow: and some there are

Who hold that, ere we enter into life,

Soul hath with soul been mated, each for each
Especially ordained.

This fable is well calculated to teach us that so important an event as marriage, on which the happiness of a life depends, ought not to be enterprised or taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, wantonly, but in a spirit of caution, and of affection founded on sufficient

knowledge and mutual respect; so that there be no after sorrow, nor late repentance.

A STAG, drinking at a pool which reflected his shadow in its clear water, began to regard his shape with much admiration. "Ah," says he, "what a glorious pair of horns are there! How gracefully do these antlers adorn my forehead! Would that my feet were only fair as my antlered brow!" While he was thus meditating, he was startled by the sound of the huntsmen and hounds. Away he flies, and, using his nimble feet, soon distanced his enemies. But shortly after, entering a dense copse, his horns became entangled in the branches, the hounds overtook him, and pulled him down. "Unhappy creature that I